Mayer Hawthorne brings taste of yesteryear to the Bay Area

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Mayer Hawthorne grew up driving with his father and tuning the car radio in to the rich soul and jazz history that Michigan provided.

“Most of the best music ever made came out of Detroit,” the singer, DJ, rapper, producer and multi-instrumentalist says.

His music has been described as retro and Hawthorne himself says he draws on the likes of Smokey Robinson and Curtis Mayfield. Hawthorne is a throwback in another sense to: he plays all his own instruments.

“He showed me two songs and I didn’t understand what I was listening to,” DJ Peanut Butter Wolf, who will play with Hawthorne tonight, said about the first time he his friend. “I asked him if they were old songs that he did re-edits of – I couldn’t believe they were new songs and that he played all the instruments.”